After J.P. Morgan set new profit and stock price records in 2019, America’s biggest bank subsequently raised the salary for its CEO, Jamie Dimon, to $31.5 million—making it likely that he will again be the highest paid big-bank executive in the U.S.
- The J.P. Morgan Chase CEO/s compensation amounted to $1.5 million in base salary and $30 million from performance-based incentives—including $5 million in cash and $25 million in stock compensation, according to a new filing released late on Thursday.
- J.P. Morgan posted a record profit of $36.4 billion in 2019, more than any bank in history and a 12% increase from the year before, helping the stock rise 43% to end the year at an all-time high of almost $140 per share.
- Thanks to his role overseeing the bank’s successful run last year, Jamie Dimon looks set to remain the highest-paid CEO in the banking industry, according to the Wall Street Journal.
- In 2018, Dimon received a total compensation package of $31 million, while his closest competitor was Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman, with a $29 million salary.
- While most big banks are yet to disclose CEO pay for 2019, few can match Chase’s banner year: Morgan Stanley recently disclosed that it cut Gorman’s salary by 7% to $27 million, after its shares underperformed rivals.
- After decades running some of the biggest lenders in the U.S., Dimon is one of the few billionaires in banking, with a net worth of $1.7 billion, according to Forbes.
Tangent: Although Jamie Dimon has previously criticized wealth inequality, he also noticeably avoided questions about his own hefty salary last year.
Big number: Between 1991 and 2015, Dimon has been paid $115 million in salary alone, Bloomberg reported.
Key background: J.P. Morgan Chase stock surged after stellar fourth-quarter earnings, which added millions to Dimon’s fortune. The bank trounced Wall Street forecasts, announcing earnings of $2.57 per share, significantly higher than the $2.36 expected by analysts. Overall revenue rose over 4% from a year earlier, to a record of almost $28 billion thanks to a rebound in trading revenue. “JP Morgan Chase produced strong results in the fourth quarter of 2019, capping off a solid year for the firm where we achieved many records, including record revenue and net income,” Dimon said in an earnings release.
This article originally appeared on Forbes.
